Quote of the Week:

“Deep professional learning involves more than workshops or in-service training in [identified] priorities…Implementing change effectively requires time to understand, learn about, and reflect on what the change involves and requires. Even for the best teachers, changing successfully is hard intellectual work…Learning to teach better, to be a continuously improving professional, involves more that implementing other people’s ideas and agendas compliantly.” -Teaching in the Knowledge Society: Education in the Age of Insecurity by Andy Hargreaves (Referenced in Best Practice: Today’s Standards for Teaching and Learning in America’s Schools by Daniels, Hyde, and Zemelman p. 269)

Lessons:

This was a slow coaching week for me as teachers were completing the MAP tests throughout the week, preparing for a weeklong holiday next week, and still trying to fit in all the subjects in our reduced Ramadan-scheduled day? (Did I mention these people are amazing?!?)
However, to the best of my knowledge Grades 3 and 4 worked to help students choose a seed idea and write a discovery draft (we are saving the leads and endings lessons for after the break.) While Grade 5—who intend to have students write two drafted personal narratives—worked to have students write leads, a discovery draft, and endings for their first selected seed story. (After the holiday they will return to begin the whole process again with a second piece and the expectation of much more independence from students.)

Reflection:

As I posted on my blog earlier in the week, I think a few of us are feeling some of the dreaded “workshop frustrations”. These might be: they aren’t getting it (drafts, leads, endings, seed ideas), we can’t get to it (this schedule has been brutal), we don’t know how this will look when they publish (we didn’t plan for the end first—we certainly will with Unit 2), and my favorite: how do I help this one student who won’t (expand his writing and make it long, develop more than one lead/ending, make this story better (I know he can!), isn’t participating in the share appropriately, or give me anything to work with in a conference!)
All of those negative contractions are telling me one thing: we are in it, we are really in the thick of it!

Hints/Tips:

For students who aren’t getting it: remember this is a spiral. We are here to teach them how to get it and to give them time to practice getting it.

Teach the writer not the writing:

If the writer isn’t doing something– investigate why:

• Is the topic something he really doesn’t know enough/or care enough about? Then the writer might need more guidance on seed selection next time.
• Is it fear of taking a risk in a “stream-of consciousness type of writing”? Then the writer might need to practice opening up and speed writing on a variety of topics. Or maybe he should work on telling the story across his fingers to find his fluency.
• Has the writer looked at enough quality mentor texts and thought about what the authors are doing in those books? Then the writer might need to be given several books and coached in how to look at them with “writer’s eyes”.
• Is the story sequenced incorrectly, preventing it from beginning and ending well? Then the writer might benefit greatly from the upcoming lessons utilizing timelines as tools, but he will probably need help in cutting back or adding information into his draft from his timeline.

If you feel like you can’t get to the lessons:
Try again next week. But remember you are building stamina, habits, and most importantly you are employing a gradual-release-of-responsibility each time you teach a small mini-lesson, send the students away to work independently, bring them back to share and assess how well they are moving forward each day. Without the daily practice, you automatically stunt the release and independence (and consequently the “getting its” will only be delayed). I know I read this somewhere, but I can’t remember where… a writer when asked how to get better once replied: “Write. A lot. Everyday.”

If you don’t know what this is all going to look like in the end:
Stop and plan that piece out NOW with your team. Looking at the schedule will you have time for students to fully and completely edit for all spelling and grammatical errors? Will you have time for them to type out their published piece? Will you ask them to provide a decorated cover and a detailed author’s page on this first published narrative? More importantly- how will you allow students time to self-reflect, celebrate and share this learning?
(Super hint: The next unit builds on this one and might be a better use of the “fancying” up reserved for published pieces. In fact- you might not want to send this first published piece home with the kids as it will come in handy in unit 2.)

If you have a student who won’t write, expand, share, confer etc.
Don’t give up on her!!!! Remember, this child is as new to this process as you are minus years of life experience and training. She might not have the skills to free write yet. Or she might be blocked due to a previous experience when she did and was promptly taught that her story was full of errors.  Until we have this spiral greased and moving through our system, we can’t blame the kids for not being able to do this right away, on the first try! We have to guide them in all things workshop:
• How to think (like a writer)
• How to talk (like a writer) to other writers
• How to push yourself (as a writer) and have stamina
• How to reread your writing and make changes (like a writer)
• How to plan for executing a story (like a writer)
• How to listen in order to get feedback and to be able to give it (like a writer)

If you were these kids, would you be able to do all of this in front of a new teacher, in a new room, in the second month of school?

I know I couldn’t…

When you’re done you’ve just begun.

As I posted last week, we have started to receive bits of our shipment. My orders consisted of professional books aimed to help us grow as teachers in the areas of reading, writing, and word study. Here are the writing books we’ve received so far…

Mechanically Inclined: Building Grammar, Usage, and Style into Writer’s Workshop by Jeff Anderson This book is going to be a favorite when we begin to write lessons specifically on identified grammar needs into our units. The author understands how to embed the teaching of these important skills in to a workshop format.

Text Forms and Features: A Resource for Intentional Teaching by Margaret E. Mooney- This is a little gem of a book. In it, the author details very deliberately each type of written text, such as “Procedural Texts” and then lists why it is written/used, what it is, and the features of that particular text.

The Power of Grammar: Unconventional Approaches to the Conventions of Language by Mary Ehrenworth and Vicki Vinton- Thinking again about teaching grammar within a workshop framework, this book provides among other things, “a wealth of mentor texts that allow students to examine conventional and unconventional constructions from the work of published authors…”

Mentor Texts: Teaching Writing Through Children’s Literature, K-6 by Lynne R. Dorfman and Rose Cappelli- To preview this new book I went directly to the last chapter titled “A Treasure Chest of Books” where there was an extensive bibliography of books to use as mentor texts for such topics as Discovering Personal Stories, Discovering the Heart of the Story, Zooming in on a small idea, and Analyzing and Modeling Syntax From Mentor Texts.

The Revision Toolbox: Teaching Techniques That Work by Georgia Heard- This book is a favorite of many of my mentors. A quick preview tells me we too will find this book invaluable to our writing workshop work. In fact, I’m taking this one home tonight!

Today I had the pleasure of going into my friend Heather’s kindergarten class to talk to them about my own reading life. In their fist Unit of Study in reading they are learning why readers read.

So, on my way out the door this morning, I literally pushed all of the books on my bedside table: Wicked by Gergory Maguire, Michael and Natasha: The Life and Love of the Last Czar of Russia by Rosemary and Donald Crawford and Frommer’s Guide to Paris, into my school bag. As I neared the door of my bedroom I also grabbed off the top of my desk, the children’s books: Olivia Forms a Band by Ian Falconer and Pete and Pickles by Berkley Breathed from my before-bed reading with my daughter the night before. These books became my artifacts when sharing my reading life with Heather’s new, eager readers.

I told them that I read lots of books for many different reasons. I also told them that I loved to share great books with my friends. So we read both children’s books. Besides the keen interest shown to my presentation by a group of 6 year olds, my favorite part of experience has to be when I finished Pete and Pickles-and the end of this book is not to be missed!- and looked out at Heather sitting between her kids… fighting back tears. “They were just such good friends!” she cried.

I also told my new reading buddies- readers care about the stories they read. Good books make you feel something!

Once again, the gals at the blog: Two Writing Teachers have inspired me.

At our school we have just jumped into the deep-deep end of this writing workshop pool. We are collectively implementing; then reviewing and differentiating Lucy Calkin’s Units of Study for grades 3-5. (See my reflections in the posts “How’s It Going?”) As we are in our 4th week of this work and about 1/2 way through the first unit: Launching the Writing Workshop, it seems this is an appropriate time to be reminded as WE struggle, succeed, try, fail, become frustrated, and wonder aloud at the amazing work we are doing…

People do this and it works.

Head over to the blog Two Writing Teachers to read the post (and more importantly the comments following) “It’s Saturday” for some motivating words from your fellow writing teachers.

Today my friend Alison emailed me thinking that she might set up a bulletin board display with student LEADS posted. I think this is a great idea for the following reasons:

• My belief is that student work does NOT need to be error free or perfect to be displayed. (If it is then more than likely it is really the teacher’s work.)
• That said, I think it is appropriate to qualify your display to explain to kids, parents and other teachers what it is they are looking at and why. Often I display what I call “Process Pieces” and I title the learning board something like

1. “We are learning how to DRAFT!”
2. “Process Pieces- This work is still in process”
3. “When You’re Done You’ve Just Begun!”

• Along those lines- you might ask the kids to develop the title or explanation of what they did in the pieces you are going to display. A great use of technology here is to have students use programs like Voicethread or Jing to record their explanations. This makes a much more useful artifact than simply having a teacher-corrected published piece.

I love to think of bulletin boards as teaching tools rather than as display- more like a canvas than a framed piece of art. Ideally they should be student generated or created and should be USED by the kids to help them learn and reflect. For the outside world- learning boards can a window into the real work, or heavy lifting, being done by learners in the classroom. If all we ever show is perfection at the end of the learning, it is hard to appreciate and learn from all the effort that went into the work.

Quote of the week:

“It’s a good sign when your children have enough momentum and direction as writers that they don’t rely on the daily minilesson as their source of direction. If children know how to carry on as writers and have a small repertoire of strategies to draw from then our teaching can focus on the finer points of their work… Minilessons aren’t designed to set children up for what they’ll do on any one day, instead, they are always designed to lift the level of what children are doing in general. (From Lucy’s coaching notes in Lauching the Writing Workshop p. 38.)

Lessons:

This third week was a TOUGH one. Our teachers are battling dwindling enrollment due to absent kids (a result of the education ministry mandates on H1N1 here), back to school prep for parents took up loads of time, and the shortened school day-due to our Ramadan schedule-means as soon as the bell rings you feel behind. However, we pushed through it and did some quality teaching. Lessons in all the grades (3-5) focused on building stories step-by-step, selecting seed ideas, and writing quality leads. I coached into several grade 3-5 classrooms this week.

Reflection:

We are plugging right along. Here are some success stories:

• Marisa’s lesson on leads in G.5 gave her lower writers a boost and they produced some quality work.
• Alison successfully conferenced with a G.4 student who was stuck listing ideas and pushed him to see the story and how to build it step-by-step by using lots of “then what happened?” prompts.
• Chris shared his own wonderful writing to help his G.5 students focus on trying out different leads. His kids listened to him read out his writing and were able to offer suggestions/comments about his leads—proving that they were beginning to understand how to manage their own.
• Ken and I demonstrated quality conferences—making an impact on the 3rd graders about their role in all of this. Following that, during independent writing time, we also encouraged writing long and using stamina.
• Scott, although out with an illness at the beginning of the week, chose to show his G.4 students the video (posted here last week) of Marisa and I demonstrating a quality conference. Needing to keep track of his pace, this idea allowed him to save some time while getting the points in there.
• Nandita, a new grade 3 teacher, helped me see that we needed to rework and “reimagine” our calendar for completing this first unit. Our plans for last year were made with our best guess as to how this would all work out. New calendars for grades 3 and 4 were handed out today and will hopefully keep us moving forward with success, but maybe more importantly help to keep our sanity intact.
• I now know that before we begin the 2nd unit, we MUST have a start up meeting to begin with the end in mind. We will:

1. Review the calendar and talk about the pace of the unit.
2. Plan for how the final product will be produced. (Typed, handwritten, published as a “Process Piece”)
3. Envision how we will celebrate student work.
4. Gather information about this process and celebrate our own journey as teachers.

Hints/Tips:

Conferring is the key. Becoming a proficient conferrer is the best teaching strategy you can learn to move your children forward as writers. Being able to listen to what they are trying to do, respond to what you hear, and then offer an affirmation and a tip for improvement is not easy. (That’s why she calls it the “Art” of teaching writing!)
Target, Teach, Travel. This is my motto for keeping the conferences moving.

• You can target who is ready for a conference with you in different ways: read student notebooks and recognize who needs a meeting; moving through a list, keep track of who you’ve met with; and/or look out for those that are either paused and aren’t rapidly writing or kids who are scrawling ideas as fast as they can. (Both groups deserve a check-in.)
• Keep your teaching to one transferable (meaning the tip will help now- but also in the future) point. Keep it simple.
• Move on. If necessary, plan to swing back and check in with the student at the end of the class. DO NOT get in the habit of sitting with one child until he “gets it.” Travel around the room like a bird looking for a mouse. When you see it dive in and grab it; then get out of there!

Develop and use a conferencing toolkit for each unit: This is something I’ve read a bit about but have not actually seen. I’m thinking we could construct a conferencing toolkit for each grade to use with each unit. Included might be: checklists of items to look for, praise, and teach to while conferencing. There could also be copies of mentor text pages especially useful to study (which could be given to students to learn from during the conference). Finally I think the toolkit would not be complete without some sort of anecdotal record keeping form, with space to gather info about each writer. Lucy’s rubric might work for this, however developing our own could be a good thinking exercise. Ideally this toolkit would help the teacher hone-in-on and fine-tune a conference. Ideas? Please share in the comment section below.

Here is a video showing one possible Conferencing Toolkit used in the primary grades. Food for thought…

http://storyteller.glogster.com/toolkit/

At ACS we have been back in school for about 3 weeks. Our elementary Back to School Night is coming up next Wednesday. As we are implementing some new literacy units and ideas I’ve been asked to help teachers prepare for parent questions and concerns. Here are two ideas to get us started…

From Mindy Hoffer of All Write!!!: Give parents a handout explaining how they can help their children at home with both reading and writing. (Clicking the link will send you to Scribd where you can download these documents to make them your own, giving credit to Mindy of course as the original document creator.)

On Thursday I asked for help with this topic on the blog: Two Writing Teachers. These ladies have a wonderful blog with a wealth of information, so I wasn’t surprised when they wrote back with several great ideas. (Click the link to read my question and their response.)

Do you have more good ideas to share? Please do so in the comment section for this post.

Last week I worked with Marisa in her fifth grade classroom on Lesson 4 from Launching the Writing Workshop. We wanted to demonstrate a bad conference vs. a good conference for her students to help ensure they fully participate in this important part of the writing workshop. (In this lesson in the book, Lucy provides a helpful Student A/B script which I’ve used before with kids to demonstrate what Marisa and I did here.)

In this video, you will see Marisa and I modeling how a conference might go at this point in the unit. To give Marisa my full attention I told the kids I wasn’t writing notes during this particular conference, but following it I probably would.

This clip highlights the 4 phases a teacher ideally will go through during a conference: Research, Decide, Teach, Link. Also, you can see how Marisa as the writer is encouraged and pushed ever so slightly into continuing to do good work.

Notes for September. Click on this link Sept. ’09 Lit Coach Notes which will send you to Scribd where you can open or download the file.